"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it."

This is really pathetic that the government has to SNOOP to these levels.

fixed it.

So when do we reach the bottom of the barrel? At what point can the NSA spokesmen say something that is not nearly instantly countered by leaked documents? At what point does the president / congress / supreme court step in and say "dude, just shut up if you're not going to tell the truth"

My elected official was one of those voting against limiting NSA snooping a few weeks back. What good is it writing him? I can and will protest if there's a public protest. I can rage (like this) which will ultimately accomplish nothing. Or I can shrug my shoulders. What else can I do? I'm powerless. My elected official would probably listen if a majority of his constituents showed up at his office (won't happen because they are shrugging their shoulders) or if someone well connected, perhaps rich, perhaps a corporation in his district contacted him instead of a little old me.

I will not vote to re-elect this guy, and that's based solely on his NSA vote. Don't care what the rest of his politics look like if he's willing to trample on the constitution and allow en-masse violations of the 4th amendment. Sadly by next elections people would have forgotten all about NSA. And that's how it is. We get a government we deserve. If reality TV and football and Bieber get more people's attention than the NSA thing, then we deserve what we get.

This is really pathetic that the government has to SNOOP to these levels.

fixed it.

So when do we reach the bottom of the barrel? At what point can the NSA spokesmen say something that is not nearly instantly countered by leaked documents? At what point does the president / congress / supreme court step in and say "dude, just shut up if you're not going to tell the truth"

In order for this to happen, people will need to care. As it stands, the VAST majority of people I know can't get a grasp on what all of this means in the context of our constitution or their personal privacy. When I try to explain what's happening, eyes glaze over and occasionally roll as if I'm some kind of conspiracy nut. As long as this is how the majority of American's react, there's no reason for anyone in our government to worry about it.

This is really pathetic that the government has to SNOOP to these levels.

fixed it.

So when do we reach the bottom of the barrel? At what point can the NSA spokesmen say something that is not nearly instantly countered by leaked documents? At what point does the president / congress / supreme court step in and say "dude, just shut up if you're not going to tell the truth"

In order for this to happen, people will need to care. As it stands, the VAST majority of people I know can't get a grasp on what all of this means in the context of our constitution or their personal privacy. When I try to explain what's happening, eyes glaze over and occasionally roll as if I'm some kind of conspiracy nut. As long as this is how the majority of American's react, there's no reason for anyone in our government to worry about it.

Pretty much this. Rail at the lawmakers all you want. This is OUR fault. WE let this happen.

I blame me. Though I had reservations about things like the PATRIOT act, I let them slide, because, basically... 9/11 and terrorism and BAD THINGS will happen, and I trust our leadership don't I? Aren't they basically good people?

Within NSA, former officials say, intelligence officers joked that the Blarney intercept program with AT&T was named in homage to the NSA program Shamrock, which intercepted telegraphic messages into and out of the U.S. and was an inspiration for the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which created the secret national-security court and placed intelligence activities under its supervision.

It should be pointed out that Shamrock was in fact illegal. FISA was passed to prevent future violations of law and other abuses. So this "homage" is in honor of illegal conduct. That is what the NSA has chosen to be proud of.

Quote:

The system has the capacity to reach roughly 75% of all U.S. Internet traffic in the hunt for foreign intelligence, including a wide array of communications by foreigners and Americans. In some cases, it retains the written content of emails sent between citizens within the U.S. and also filters domestic phone calls made with Internet technology, these people say.

I think the final sentence of this quote has been edited in the WSJ article since this morning actually. Before, the final quote did not say "filters" in front of domestic phone calls. The new meaning is unclear. Are these calls being retained like other data from the internet? If so, that's illegal wiretapping. http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/201 ... velations/ references that article and says "Today, the Wall Street Journal reported that the N.S.A. administers programs capable of sweeping up not just data like IP addresses and email addresses, but also the actual content of 75 percent of Americans’ email traffic and Internet phone calls."

”Talks between the government and different telecoms about what constitutes foreign communications have 'been going on for some years,' and ... some in the industry believe the law is unclear on Internet traffic,” the WSJ writes.

Shit is getting dystopian and you think this can be changed with a vote?

[edit] The cops killing the Down's kid thing happened in February of this year though I only read about it today.

[edit 2] And apparently, though the case was ruled a homicide, all three cops got off scott-free. Not to hijack the thread with this but, come on, this is a nation where you get millions of hits when you search for "police kill down syndrome". I don't think asking the .gov to "pretty please" stop spying on us is going to work.

Shit is getting dystopian and you think this can be changed with a vote?

I don't expect to get a handwritten letter back on nice stationary. A form letter is fine. My letter may be distilled down to "1 letter opposed to NSA" and that's fine. Opinion noted. I don't expect that my one letter will change their mind (though that would be pretty great), but rather that it will be one of many that together let them know public opinion is shifting and they should consider shifting too. That's what politicians do.

That said, at some point, you can give up on communicating your opinion to a given politician and instead find and support their opponents, whether in the primaries or in the actual elections.

Is this going to solve all the problems in the world? No, of course not. But you work with what you got. Sometimes it will make the difference.

The Salt Lake Winter Olympics started just four months after the 9/11 attacks. Approximately 2,400 athletes from 77 nations participated.

The way you defend our current security > civil liberties posture, you should change your nick to advocatusSatanae.

I think the point is that this was after 9/11 but before the Iraq war. The Taliban was being routed, and it was thought the Afghan war wouldn't last long. People were scared but believed int he government and military. I'm not saying it's right, but it wouldn't surprise me if Americans would have been overwhelmingly in favor of snooping on emails then.

Shit is getting dystopian and you think this can be changed with a vote?

I don't expect to get a handwritten letter back on nice stationary. A form letter is fine. My letter may be distilled down to "1 letter opposed to NSA" and that's fine. Opinion noted. I don't expect that my one letter will change their mind (though that would be pretty great), but rather that it will be one of many that together let them know public opinion is shifting and they should consider shifting too. That's what politicians do.

That said, at some point, you can give up on communicating your opinion to a given politician and instead find and support their opponents, whether in the primaries or in the actual elections.

Is this going to solve all the problems in the world? No, of course not. But you work with what you got. Sometimes it will make the difference.

I think I'm part of a growing subset of "voters" who no longer believe the system in place works like we both believe it should.

For the sake of argument, let's just say there's absolutely no hope of anything we do making a difference. Voting, "raising awareness", calling/writing lawmakers--none of it works. What then? Where does a society go from there?

The Salt Lake Winter Olympics started just four months after the 9/11 attacks. Approximately 2,400 athletes from 77 nations participated.

The way you defend our current security > civil liberties posture, you should change your nick to advocatusSatanae.

I think the point is that this was after 9/11 but before the Iraq war. The Taliban was being routed, and it was thought the Afghan war wouldn't last long. People were scared but believed int he government and military. It wouldn't surprise me if Americans would have been overwhelmingly in favor of snooping on emails then.

We were overwhelmingly in favor of it...we just lifted our skirts, bent over, and said "More Please!".

Now it's out of control, and I don't know if we'll ever put this genie back in its bottle.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it."

You do realize that is technically a qualified form of both terrorism and treason?

The Salt Lake Winter Olympics started just four months after the 9/11 attacks. Approximately 2,400 athletes from 77 nations participated.

The way you defend our current security > civil liberties posture, you should change your nick to advocatusSatanae.

Oh no. I do not advocate for warrantless wiretapping nor systematic violations of basic rights. But Is not that clear from those articles if those operations carried out eleven years ago were unconstitutional or not, via legal circumvention or just a plain violation of the law. But yes, it gives me the impression of an unlawful operation. however:

Quote:

The WSJ notes that in 2002, such surveillance was permitted due to the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program,

I just wanted to give some context . The mood and emotional state of everybody at that time were different , maybe less rational and more emotional, or even more down to earth hence more rational. The terrorists accomplished their goal that day, 9/11/2001, and their goal was to create generalized terror.

The same thing happened the day of the Pearl Harbor attacks, no, it was even worse due the nature of the war and the implementation of a martial law. The US constitution was violated in the mainland against citizens with asiatic origins too.

More recently, with the Boston bombings attacks, the people of Boston 'gladly', so to speak, let the military style swat teams to inspect their homes on the search of the terrorist who was hiding inside a boat . Only the crackpot of Ron Paul complained about that.

Like if your 2d amendment was useful ever at all .

Some people forget about that. Maybe some posters were only 7-10 years old at the time of the 9/11 attacks . None of us were alive in 1944.

I just wanted to give some context since some anachronism may arise . Even more with the legal and technological situation of emails and text messages in late 2001 and early 2002.

IDK, it might be easy to label Thomas or George as racist and oppressors because they were slaves owners . But there is lack of context of course.

Dear NSA,I figure you will be reading this. What is the secret recipe to Coka-Cola? I figured if anyone knows it, you do. Also, my kid needs the answers to his homework, #23 and #25. The teacher keeps the answers in hardcopy, but I figure one of the other kids probably did it on the computer and you can get it from there.

Love,Mogert

edit:NSA,

Thank you for your prompt and accurate responses. However, this only raised more questions:1. Why is coke allowed to continue selling that to the public?!?2. While I do appreciate you going above and beyond when none of the answers to #25 matched up, perhaps the advanced interrogation techniques used on the teacher were a bit over-the-top. On the plus side, the new substitute didn't assign any homework for tonight.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it."

You do realize that is technically a qualified form of both terrorism and treason?

Treason against whom? The people who used it to justify their own freedom from tyranny?

I think I'm part of a growing subset of "voters" who no longer believe the system in place works like we both believe it should.

For the sake of argument, let's just say there's absolutely no hope of anything we do making a difference. Voting, "raising awareness", calling/writing lawmakers--none of it works. What then? Where does a society go from there?

Learn about how to use the tech available in your favor instead of it being used against you and teach other people how to do it. Do you know how to use encrypted communications? The vast majority of people have no idea how, most of them don't even know what encryption is. Learn how to use encrypted email and then teach others how to do it. There are services like countermail for example.

Get into conversations with developers so they take security more seriously. Imagine if WhatsApp for example used AES-256 for every message, no freaking way anyone in the world has the resources to break that. Key exchange could take place through public key encryption and then be stored attached the contact. The key could even be discarded every day and have a new one be exchanged when a new conversation starts the next day (although this might interfere with being able to see previous conversation threads). Drop a message to the devs to make them feel this is an important opportunity for them and that people are starting to care about that. It's not easy to add proper security to any system, it has to be worth the effort. Sure, the NSA might be able to get a hold of a few of the randomly generated keys through focused investigations, but it will take a bigger effort than anyone is capable of to actually get hold of everyone's keys or even any considerable amount.

Note: this was an example only, I don't know how WhatsApp works internally when communicating or if this is even a viable protection scheme (though it seems reasonable to me). I do know they encrypt local backups but they use a fixed key for everyone, so the same key can be used to decrypt any backup on any phone.

Shit is getting dystopian and you think this can be changed with a vote?

[edit] The cops killing the Down's kid thing happened in February of this year though I only read about it today.

[edit 2] And apparently, though the case was ruled a homicide, all three cops got off scott-free. Not to hijack the thread with this but, come on, this is a nation where you get millions of hits when you search for "police kill down syndrome". I don't think asking the .gov to "pretty please" stop spying on us is going to work.

If you don't like it, change it. I know that a single person can't do that much, but I'm sure more than enough people would support higher police standards and more rigorous mental exams if you went on change.org. I know I would.

The NSA is a problem but really it is just a symptom of a country out of control. Personally I think Americans should be far more upset. Instead of social services, good infrastructure, life quality improvements and national pride you got multiple useless wars in foreign countries, surveillance stuck down your throats, life quality reductions, banks exploding and damaged family members.

Shit is getting dystopian and you think this can be changed with a vote?

[edit] The cops killing the Down's kid thing happened in February of this year though I only read about it today.

[edit 2] And apparently, though the case was ruled a homicide, all three cops got off scott-free. Not to hijack the thread with this but, come on, this is a nation where you get millions of hits when you search for "police kill down syndrome". I don't think asking the .gov to "pretty please" stop spying on us is going to work.

If you don't like it, change it. I know that a single person can't do that much, but I'm sure more than enough people would support higher police standards and more rigorous mental exams if you went on change.org. I know I would.

I actually found out about the Down's Syndrome killer cops from Change.org today when I signed the petition. A lot of good that will do the dead Down's guy and the cops still are on the street.

I think I'm part of a growing subset of "voters" who no longer believe the system in place works like we both believe it should.

For the sake of argument, let's just say there's absolutely no hope of anything we do making a difference. Voting, "raising awareness", calling/writing lawmakers--none of it works. What then? Where does a society go from there?

Learn about how to use the tech available in your favor instead of it being used against you and teach other people how to do it. Do you know how to use encrypted communications? The vast majority of people have no idea how, most of them don't even know what encryption is. Learn how to use encrypted email and then teach others how to do it. There are services like countermail for example.

Get into conversations with developers so they take security more seriously. Imagine if WhatsApp for example used AES-256 for every message, no freaking way anyone in the world has the resources to break that. Key exchange could take place through public key encryption and then be stored attached the contact. The key could even be discarded every day and have a new one be exchanged when a new conversation starts the next day (although this might interfere with being able to see previous conversation threads). Drop a message to the devs to make them feel this is an important opportunity for them and that people are starting to care about that. It's not easy to add proper security to any system, it has to be worth the effort. Sure, the NSA might be able to get a hold of a few of the randomly generated keys through focused investigations, but it will take a bigger effort than anyone is capable of to actually get hold of everyone's keys or even any considerable amount.

Note: this was an example only, I don't know how WhatsApp works internally when communicating or if this is even a viable protection scheme (though it seems reasonable to me). I do know they encrypt local backups but they use a fixed key for everyone, so the same key can be used to decrypt any backup on any phone.

Done and done, short of talking to devs.

The question I want people to ask themselves and everyone they know is the political one because I'd really, honestly like to know what people think their options are/will be when it's clear the system doesn't work for them(us) anymore.

Shit is getting dystopian and you think this can be changed with a vote?

[edit] The cops killing the Down's kid thing happened in February of this year though I only read about it today.

[edit 2] And apparently, though the case was ruled a homicide, all three cops got off scott-free. Not to hijack the thread with this but, come on, this is a nation where you get millions of hits when you search for "police kill down syndrome". I don't think asking the .gov to "pretty please" stop spying on us is going to work.

If you don't like it, change it. I know that a single person can't do that much, but I'm sure more than enough people would support higher police standards and more rigorous mental exams if you went on change.org. I know I would.

I actually found out about the Down's Syndrome killer cops from Change.org today when I signed the petition. A lot of good that will do the dead Down's guy and the cops still are on the street.

Are you serious? You're only going to focus on this particular incident and write off the chance that a call for higher police standards could prevent more incidents like this one? You don't want to prevent similar problems?

Shit is getting dystopian and you think this can be changed with a vote?

[edit] The cops killing the Down's kid thing happened in February of this year though I only read about it today.

[edit 2] And apparently, though the case was ruled a homicide, all three cops got off scott-free. Not to hijack the thread with this but, come on, this is a nation where you get millions of hits when you search for "police kill down syndrome". I don't think asking the .gov to "pretty please" stop spying on us is going to work.

If you don't like it, change it. I know that a single person can't do that much, but I'm sure more than enough people would support higher police standards and more rigorous mental exams if you went on change.org. I know I would.

I actually found out about the Down's Syndrome killer cops from Change.org today when I signed the petition. A lot of good that will do the dead Down's guy and the cops still are on the street.

Are you serious? You're only going to focus on this particular incident and write off the chance that a call for higher police standards could prevent more incidents like this one? You don't want to prevent similar problems?

Or am I missing your point? What are you saying by this?

Yeah, sorry, didn't make that as clear as it should have been. I signed the petition calling for more training for cops in dealing with disabled people...but I'm too cynical to believe it'll actually change anything. I mean, the petition was calling for more [i[training for cops[/i] instead of freaking charging them with murder. That tells me there's really little hope.

If the report is correct, then I think that would be my first totally official "my email was sampled" brush with the NSA. I guess I'm honored?

I was in Park City (where some of the events were held) for Slamdance (occurs alongside Sundance festival, as do things like TromaDance). This was before the Olympics started, but close enough we got to help "test" all the new gadgets at the airport on arrival and departure. I would assume they'd do all the same snooping weeks or months before to catch any pre-Olympics terror plots.

They must have hoovered up quite a bit of celeb traffic, Park City is packed with minor and major folks during the festival(s). My favorite was Lloyd Kaufman. And the NSA saw the photo I emailed back home I suppose. Fucking crazy. Good thing I didn't include any plot summaries in my emails.